Short hops and hard knocks with Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne.

The Kids are human

Jon Lester finally plummeted back to Planet Earth today. So did Manny Delcarmen. Let’s remember, they are rookies. This wasn’t going to last forever.

Lester had been walking a tight rope for the last few weeks, putting men on base and somehow wiggling out of jams. Today, his mistakes were crushed off and over the walls here at Safeco. Because of how grounded and focused Lester is, I doubt that pitching in his hometown had any impact on his lackluster start thus far today. It was just one of those days that was bound to happen sooner or later.

As for Delcarmen, he had been uttterly brilliant of late, setting guys up with his fastball and finishing them with his curve. But he got knocked around a little today.

Coco got on base his first two at-bats today, doubles both times up. That’s a good sign for sure. And Varitek made solid contact a couple of times. If the Red Sox can get some bang from the lower part of the order, the offense will become dangerous again.

Not so dangerous these days is Trot. Has anyone noticed that he’s transformed into a singles hitter of late? Nixon last went deep on June 9. He has no extra basehits in July. It’s strange, Nixon came out last year hitting for some power, suffered some injuries and really hasn’t had any power over the last calendar year.

I’m wondering if the Red Sox charge hard for a No. 5 hitter over the trading deadline.

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118 Comments

i love the title.ANd yes you are right guys are going to have bad days.I do agree pitching in seatte i dont think is his problem Thry are just a good team.One outing is not going to break Lester he is still needed on this ballclub.

I’m NOT worried about Lester, Ian. And I still doubt Trot will be involved in any trade during the season, altho I wouldn’t put any money on it. If Theo is thinking of trading everyone in the batting order whose batting average has fallen 20, 30, 40 points in July, take a look at Youkalis, Loretta, Lowell.

coco jumped for the wall and missed it by about 5 feet, then manny bobbled it off the wall back to crisp who showed a weak arm to 3rd, the ball was rolling for a little then it was picked up and the throw to home was not in time

you’re 4-7 vs the jays we are 4-5, you do the math. I changed to this because this is my actual email address, so if anything I am more open on the blogs now. Yeah you are being putzed, the two most clutch hitters in the entire world who can do no wrong both struck out fagan

Real tough loss. After the big 6th inning everything was in place for the win. Hansen had a clutch inning. Delcarmen and Timlin just didn’t get it done today. The pen was lined up the way we needed it with Delcarmen, Timlin, the Paps. Unfortunately Delcarmen gave up 2 big 2 out runs. Timlin coughed up the big one to Sexson. I originally thought to bring in Paps for the 9th, but with Timlin only throwing 13 pitches in the 8th, it was the right call to have him out there for the 9th. On the other hand though, if we had decent arms other than Tavarez and Seanez left to be used, Tito might have brought in Paps. This way if we didn’t win it in the 10th , Paps could have thrown one more and then we could have brought in a reliable arm. However, with the terrible EZ’ lurking out there, this was the way to go. Hopefully Becket can keep the ball in the yard tomorrow. Oakland’s arms are tough and the Sox have to come back to Fenway with at worst a split of the 6 game trip.

NOW THAT WE ALL KNOW JESSER IS VINCE IS YANKEEVMM. FAGAN RUDE! FAGAN RUDE!!! WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. YOU AND CRYBABBY INDIAN VIC AREN’T ONE IN THE SAME, ALSO, ARE YOU!!!!!!

I WAS GONNA LET IT SLIDE, BUT NOW I’M GOING TO POST NYY AND BOSTON # GAMES VERSUS OTHER AL EAST TEAMS. YOU WERE WRONG ON THIS FOUR TIMES, YOU KNOW. TOLD ME YOU VERIFIED YOU WERE CORRECT–OF COURSE, YOU WEREN’T–IN A LITTLE OVER TWO MINUTES. FAST AND WRONG. TOOK ME A FEW MORE MINUTES TO BE RIGHT.

BY THE WAY, JESSER, IS GENNIVEVE… ELOISE… QUININE TECH…WHATEVER… A CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL. JUST KIDDING ON THAT ONE, BECAUSE I KNOW I’VE HEARD THE NAME OF THAT SCHOOL ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS…

OH! OH! I remember now. It was all those times you mentioned that you were going there.

WE JUST LOST. 1-2. SAME RESULT YOU’D’VE HAD AGAINST SEATTLE HAD NOT AN UMPIRE GIVEN YOU THE 2ND GAME. WE WIN ALL OF OURS OURSELVES.

I MAY RECONSIDER MY EARLIER DECISION TO NOT SCAN ANY POSTS IN THE INTERIM BETWEEN MY WEEKLY VISITS OVER THERE IN THE FUTURE. I WILL NOT RECONSIDER, HOWEVER, UNTIL YOUR TEAM IS IN FIRST PLACE AND MY TEAM IS IN SECOND PLACE. THAT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN, BUT THAT’S THE DEAL. AND, YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, JESSER, THAT ONE BECOMES VERY…VERY TIRED OF WASTING TIME WITH THOSE WHO CAN NEITHER PUT UP NOR SHUT UP.

I’m outta her to get a life until next weekend. See ya’ next weekend, folks. Keep swatting the flys and other insects our superior Blog is continuing to attract over here. HEY-ZUSS, their philosophy seems to be “if you can’t be a winner, try to hang out with one”.

I’m really getting tired of Manny being Manny in the field. The first blunder he gave let in a run… did anyone notice when he slid to stop that gapper, he didn’t even come close to sticking his mitt out. He just kicked it over to Crisp. On the “inside the park homer”, he also spazzed out. It would have been nice to see Papelbon in the ninth, the I thought they would give Timlin another shot.

fagan, then why do you continue to respond? You said yourself you love to talk **** in your measely, useless life. Fact of the matter is and I’m sorry if objective ESPN didn’t explain this clearly enough for you, games go the way of umpires all the time, more often than not they go against the yankees, not for them. the fact of the matter is, we still took 2 out of 3, so stop crying about it.

You are always so quick to say me and Vik complain but look at your posts when you address people? Capital letters, incoherent speech, non existant words, sentence fragments, complaint after complaint after complaint. You are the biggest baby of them all.

It is Quinnipiac, they do the national political polls, that is probably where you heard them, and I would not have to comstantly tell you I go there if you didn’t so often need to be reminded that you are showing a severe amount of less maturity than a 19 year old college student.

So which is it? You will “waste” your time reading yankee blog posts, or you won’t? First you say you will reconsider and that you will read them, then you say it is a waste of your time, make up your mind, or else you just come off as a senile grandpa.

Where are these posts? If you truly did the research and I was wrong four times (is anybody else going to disagreee boston is 4-7 vs toronto and the Yankees 4-5?) than why have you not done it already? You are all talk, all the time, with no action. You have never once proven me or anybody else on the yankee blog wrong, not once.

And every single weekend you say you’re going to “get a life” and every single weekend you come crawling back, talk talk talk all the time.

I know this isn’t going to be popular… but it needs to be said. Wily Mo in, Kapler out. Not sure why Wily Mo wasn’t in the lineup today. We really need to get him ABs, as he might be our full time RF next year. Kapler is a spot guy.

Rayman:I agree Kapler should Be a pinch hitter(not that he is not good but) if we get rid of TROT we may(or will) need to use Willy Mo more so we nees to see what he has.I love Gabe bu t we need to give WILLY MO more at bats.

My goodness, I leave the blog for a 12 hour shift and look what happens…. all of you fighting.
Hey ok, I know that we lost and that every win is VERY IMPORTANT, but at least we didn’t lose any ground to the yankees. But we did let the Jays 1 closer. They are both very dangerous at any time during the season but especially now.

I thank you guys for all the updates. Every week you make it like I’m watching the game. You ought to be paid for this, but….. You get my undying respect and as always my thanks. You know we have 6 tv’s in the bar, and I always have at least 1 that I can see on ESPN, but I always turn around just as the Sox score is dying from the screen, so you make it easy for me.

I do not think that Manny will be the object of a trade. I HATE to say it but I think that even in his slump, I think I may be watching the last of My Dirt Dawgs days with our Sox…. I could also see Alex Cora going……

As far as trades go, I don’t see Cora going anywhere. He is too valuable. He can give Lowell, Gonzalez and Loretta a day off if needed. The guy is Mr. Utility and always makes something happen. I think it would be a bad move by Theo if Cora is traded.
I could see Trot getting traded. As Ian Said, he hasn’t had an extra base hit in almost 2 months. How does that happen to a major leaguer? His average has dipped close to 40 points and he can’t hit lefties. (I still like the guy, I’m just pointing out his faults). He’s a free agent, so some team might want to pick up a rental for the last 2 months. Wily Mo is a future right fielder. That’s why Theo made the trade with Cincy. He’s young and has the big “P” (potential).

Other than Trot, I could only think of the 2 terrible EZ boys as trade bait. This could be why nothing has happened yet, because we don’t have much at the big league level to trade. It’s more than likely going to be prospects.

I read Jason Johnson had a good game at AAA. I hope the Sox don’t get fooled and actually bring him up because of that one game. Don’t forget the other 3 cra.ppy ones he had. Varitek says he is really impressed with Snyder’s stuff. I liked watching him the other night, but if Tek says he has good stuff, that seals it for me. Leave him in the rotation.

I hope the Sox can hit Zito tonight. They always have a tough time against big name pitchers for some reason. Big one tonight. Let’s hope the Rangers remind Randy JOhnson that he’s getting old and pound him for about 8 runs.

With all this talk about trades… I’m wondering why didn’t trade JT Snow when we had the chance. From what I remember, we just dumped him. Where did he wind up? Wasn’t there a team in the need of a good late inning replacement for defense? I would think yes with the number of big-hitting, poor fielding first basemen.

Hey all!! Well I just checked the website and Trot’s ok for now, but I’ll be checking very often between now and 7/31, midnight.

Okay, on to tonights game, I pulled Zito’s stats.. WHEW, He’s going to be trouble I think. Month to month his era just keeps getting lower and lower. Hopefully he’ll feel complacent enough for our guys to get ahead on him early. When we faced him in July, he got the W, gave up 2 earned runs and walked 4. I’m sure that we can take advantage of the walks at this time.

Oh what the ell, Let’s just go out and kick buttocks!!! MAKE SURE THE BATS ARE IN THE OVEN NOW. and make sure that we’re playing heads up ball!!!

I am ready for this game tonight.Even though I am feeling negative about this game as BARRY ZITO has givin us trouble before. But,last time I said that the SOX proved me wrong. Hope they do tonight. 10pm that is late good thing i slept til 1Pm today.I was tired.I am gunna try to stay awake i will though as I dont usally go to be til 3 or 4 am.

Here’s a thought, or a ?, or something like that…, If the sox don’t pick up some relief pitching by the deadline and the “EZ” brothers keep pitching the way they r; why not drop them to AAA and bring up Pauley and Alvarez as mid to long relief. I know about the whole stunting growth but come mid-august you got to worry about the season at hand, the only downfall i see is if one of them has a long pre-game ritual that they need to get ready to start. Just a thought

Yeah that makes it tough, but how much more money do the they make as they advance in the playoffs? i can see the money being a reason not to do it now, or even in the next few weeks, but by mid- august, with shef and MAtsui possibly coming back and the race as tight as it’s most likely going to end up, I would hope they factor money into the decision…

Nice hit coco, 5-0 sox. and beckett’s looking pretty good. Kumar what do you think they do with gabbard after that (depending on how he pitches of course) if he still looks good I think they’ll hold him up, put him in the pen

This happened during spring traing. Tito was happily having his lunch at some restaurant when a young man walked and sat next to him. Tito offered to buy this young man lunch and asked him what do you do kid?. The young man replied I am starting for you in today’s game. That young man is Kason Gabbard.

Wow, just get back from work and I see the Sox bullpen is flirting with disaster tonight…For a second I though yesterday afternoon had gotten into Timlin’s head..but Glad he got out of it. Well Go Sox!

Man, I cannot say enough about Jonathan Papelbon…This get is lights out. The League has now had a full year to see this guy, yet he still makes big time players look lost.

Not only has he been blessed with an amazing arm, but the players he’s surrounded by I think have been a huge help to him. Curt Schilling, Mike Timlin, David Wells, Keith Foulke, all guys who are clutch and big time pitchers. I say papelbon becomes one of the greatest pitchers ever when his career is over. Its tough to find talent this raw and this good at such a young age, and I think this year in the pen will turn out to be huge for him

Whenever Jon-BoN comes on I turn the lights out in the room where my computer is. Because he is LIGHTS OUT!! Once again a great outing by him. Good win.. last time Beckett faced the A’s, he gave up a ton ‘o runs, Zito felt the same sting tonight. Great game guys. COME ON TROT BREAK OUT OF THAT SLUMP, YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS!!! YO, DIRT DAWG!!

I dunno about all of you, but I’m really excited for the future of this team. I don’t care as much if we don’t win this WS this year, but I’m more concerned with how the team is in the future. The Sox are set up to become a powerhouse. In the pitching department we have Papelpon, Manny Delcarmen, Van Buren, Jon Lester, and Hanson, while still having a young Josh Beckett for at least another 3 seasons.

As for our offense, we Have Ortiz and Manny locked up until I think 2009 or 2010. Alex Gonzalez is finally starting to add a bat to his amazing glovework. We have Coco patroling Center, and I think that breaking his finger really messed him up this season. But He’s starting to show signs of life in him. I’ve noticed in the past week hes starting to hit for extra bases a lot more which is a really good sign. Wily Mo Pena has the potential to become Manny or Ortiz, he just has to let them mentor him and he just needs to be adament about working on his game. Youk is finally proving to us why he should stay on Boston for good. Dustin Pedroia will most likely take over Loretta’s position when Loretta’s two year contract expires.

My only concerns are replacing some solid pitchers. It is David Wells final year. It looks like Schilling and Timlin might retire after next season, and Wakefield will probably hang em up soon. I think the sox have to pursue Barry Zito this off Season. What a great 1-2 punch that would be.. Beckett and Zito. But Overally, I’m confident that Theo will make the right moves. His term as GM has only lead to success. But hopefully you all agree, if not, voice it! haha, And GO SOX!

I agree totally muffinman. I said that a few weeks ago as well. The Sox are very young in some very key positions. The future looks real good.
It sounds like a few of you got to watch the game, but for those of you who didn’t,I think the player of the game was Alex Gonzalez. Beckett pitched well, and the bullpen was scoreless, but A Gon made a couple of plays that are so hard, but he just makes them look routine and we wind up taking it for granted sometimes. Hansen got in trouble with the bases loaded in the 7th and a deep ground ball that Loretta didn’t get to 2nd in time to cover, A-Gon makes a throw from his back foot right on the money. Granted, Frank Thomas is slower than dirt, but when Beckett got in trouble in the 5th, ground ball in the hold A-Gon makes a nice turn for a double play. The guy probably saved us about 3 runs last night. Good game all around. The bats opened up strong and it held on.

Beckett gave up a bomb, but at that point he was up 7-0 and all you’re trying to do there is throw strikes and let the defense make the plays.

What ever happened to Matt Clement. Looks like he is no where near making a return to the rotation.September at the earliest for Clement.Why do I feel like mentioning Pavano along with Clement? No can’t be.

Mike Timlin, who’d given up Richie Sexson’s walkoff home run that beat the Sox Sunday in Seattle, got what he was looking for in the eighth after giving up a single to Milton Bradley and walking Frank Thomas to start the inning.

“I put everybody back on their heels with that walk to Thomas,” Timlin said. “Jason [Varitek] came out and said, `What are you doing?’

“I said, `I’m thinking too much.’ He said, `Stop doing that.’ ”

Jay Payton, the next batter, hit into a double play started by third baseman Mike Lowell, the last of three DPs turned by the Sox, and Swisher flied to right. See what happens when a Texan stops thinking?

“Yep,” Timlin said. “The Nuke Laloosh effect.”

–

So we have Manny Ortez, what do you call Beckett and Schilling winning back-to-back?

On paper, this game should be a gimme. A rookie making his 2nd start against a solid Sox lineup. Schilling just tossed a shutout against these guys a week ago and they are the worst hitting team in the league. Then why do I have concerns about the game? Probably just the pessimistic side of me jumping in. Maybe a let down after beating Zito? Listening to the game last night, Oakland’s pen has gone 19+ innings without giving up a run. The Sox better jump on this guy early just like last night.
Let’s go boys, 2 in row.

Ellen, I know it might break your heart, but I have a feeling this could be Trot’s last weak in a Sox uniform. He has been awful lately and doesn’t show any sign of getting out of it. I don’t know if they have a shot of getting Abreu, but rumors are that Leiber or Lidle from Philly might be on the horizen. That would cut us down to Manny, Coco, Gabe and Wily Mo in the outfield.

I’ll say I don’t feel comfortable with Trot at the plate anymore, but if it is his last week here, this guy goes down as one of my all time favorite Sox players. The guy is a grinder and although injury prone, he busts his *** on every play and I can’t imagine anyone playing right field any better than he has the past 6 years. Sentimental feelings aside, I say the most tradable options right now are Trot and The Terrible Ez’ (I don’t know who would take them). We were all hoping Clement would be traded earier in the year, but no chance of that now due to salary and his injury. Tavarez’ contract has scared some folks off as well. With the exception of a 5th arm, this looks like the team that will take us through October.

REtire Saenez, drop Tavarez to AAA (he does have good stuff maybe just needs a shake up) bring up Pauley as a reliever. with wells back shortly either snyyder or gabbard (sp) won’t be starting anyway so move one of them to relief. The only way I can see trading Trot is for another outfielder, Kaplers a Utility Player and Willy Mo just isn’t quite there yet…Trot for Lieber AND Lidle, is ther honestly rumors about that. PS-Hope Trot stays, It’s been great watching him in Boston all theses years.

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